Con....ver.....sa.....tion.

I have this friend.

I think the world of her. (Truthfully, I have a little crush on her. Which she knows about.)

We converse through sporadic text messages and emails.

The few phone conversations that we've had, weren't graceful exchanges of ideas and opinions. Which is weird, because we're both eloquent people who deftly construct all manners of interesting word usements. On the phone, though, we're stilted and awkward and there are long stretches of silence.

I blame my crush on her. It cripples my vocabulary. Limits me to something like 20 different words to work with. "Me. Like. You. Sex. Kissing. Soft. Yes. Beautiful. Wonderful. Smart. Up. Down. Before. After. You. Me. Us. All. No. Never. Always. Ding-dong..." And a few select other terms. Try saying anything interesting or engaging with THOSE few words. "You like me Ding-Dong?"

Even more painfully awkward is how each phone conversation ends. There's a big, long pause, we've said all of the business things that we need to say about getting together or something and I panic and nearly SCREAM out at her, "WELL, OKAY! I'M GOING TO GO NOW! OKAY, BYE!" And she says, "Okay, bye." And then we hang up and she thinks, "Why do I bother to call that guy?" and I think, "Good one, dummy. You fucked up the dismount, yet again!"

So, phone conversations have pretty much ended, months ago.

Now, we email.

Sort of.

Because of my boring-ass job, I am online ALL DAY LONG. If you send me an email or respond to this blog, odds are very good that you'll get a response in 20 minutes or less. Usually, less.

So, something will come up and I'll email this girl to invite her to a movie screening. Or to just check in, ask how she's doing. (Because A LOT can happen in two weeks, right?) I'll compose a very short, very pleasant, very charming email and then send it off to her, via the Interwebz.

A Day passes and I get no response from her.

Two or three days pass and I get no response from her.

A week passes and I get no response from her. (I give up on getting a response and move on with my life, vowing NEVER to get so hung up on a girl again.)

Life moves on. The sun continues to rise and set. Flowers blossom. Bees buzz. The circle of life continues it's unending revolution.

WHAM! Two weeks after I sent off my first, pleasant, charming, email, I get a response apologizing for the absence (work, life, stuff all seem to have come up! What's a girl to do?) and then I get the playful, pleasant responses to my pleasant, charming comments and then an obligatory question or two. Which I Immediately answer and send off the response, less than 20 minutes from when she wrote me. (Because of my boring-ass job, remember?)

Two weeks later, I get a response to that email.

And in such a way, am I currently engaged in the world's longest, protracted email flirtation.

Literally, WEEKS go by between reception of conversation, response and then the response to my response. In the time that it takes her to answer one of my emails, I might have a new job, lost a limb, got a new pet, lost an old pet, learned a new musical instrument, seen a dozen movies or written the next Great American novel.

One thing is for certain, I can't for the life of me, remember what I was flirting with her about, two weeks ago. I have to scroll down, view the last entry to her and try to build on top of that. A shaky prospect, at that.

I think that if I drop the veneer of civility here and blatantly say what I think is going on, I would have to confess that I honestly don't think that this girl is all that into me.
I think that the only reason that I am getting ANY response at all, is because she feels guilty for not responding promptly, knowing that I have a bit of a crush on her and that it's cruel to ignore the people who fancy you. So, my emails are read quickly and then filed away as A Thing To Be Dealt With Later. And then, sometime much later, when she's handling much more important things, she sees the email from me and thinks, "Ah well. I better write him back. He'll be expecting it." And that's why I get any response at all.

I think I'll just let this thing die out on it's own after her next response.

(If there is one.)

I'll just quietly enjoy whatever charming thing that she has to say and enjoy the brief bit of attention that she flattered me with and then close the email, delete it and move onto more engaging interactions with other human beings. People who work at a slightly more timely pace.

Our prolonged con...ver...sa...tion will die a quiet, merciful death.

Euthanasia of the Conversatia.

Waiting patiently for a response,
Mr.B

An Old Love Letter...

I don't usually keep love letters or pictures.

After things go sour, and they usually do, the mementos that I have kept all serve as painful reminders of Mistakes Made or Wrongs Suffered.

So, I was very surprised to find this email saved in my emailbox. Truth be told, I was in there, digging around, looking for some trace of someone else that I was badly missing. The other person is erased entirely. All that I have left are my own memories and they fade, month to month. I despair to think that eventually I'll forget this other person entirely someday.

I remember receiving this email and I remember being touched by the effort that this girl made to write this to me. She wasn't given to eloquence or written poems or love notes. She was a quiet person and I imagine the urge to write this to me welled up so much inside of her, that she was compelled to write this to me out of nowhere.

The title of the email was "Morning, Sunshine."

This was in November of 2005.

This is what she wrote to me...

I was thinking about you this morning and thinking how happy I am that I get to see you tonight.

Which made me think how I was thinking in class the other day how happy I am in general to have met you, that you accepted my proposal for a date, that I now get to bury my face in your neck.

How just the sound of your voice can make my night that much better and how I can't help but grin when I see you.

How I love that you've opened new doors for me to explore, and how much getting to know you the last couple of months has enriched various aspects of my life.

I thought you should know that I think you are pretty amazing.

Didn't mean to get all mushy on you. Must be PMS. ;)

I hope you had fun last night and have a good day at work. Don't let em work you too hard.

B.

I don't know where she is right now.

I ended that relationship, because I felt like she was always mad at me for things that I couldn't do right. Which was very frustrating.

When I suggested on the phone that perhaps we should just end the relationship, she hung up on me immediately. I didn't call her back. Ten minutes later, she called me, crying. She asked me if I was sure that this was what I wanted. I said that I wasn't, but that I didn't want the relationship that we were having. That I was tired of her being silently angry with me, all the time. For not seeing her enough. For not holding her enough. For not... Hell, I can't remember why she was always so mad at me. Maybe because I wasn't the guy that she thought I was. And she was mad at me for not telling her that up front. As if I could.

My memories of this girl are sweet ones. She was so pretty and sexy and fresh and young and exciting. I would suggest something naughty and she'd look shocked for a second and then give it a try. I love the memories of those moments. The look of determination in her eyes as she forged new ground and tried something new, trusting my recommendation.

Our little love affair was too brief.

I don't think I would be so cavalier about having someone love me like that, again. I think that instead of suggesting a "break-up", that I would spend some time discussing the things that were frustrating me and try to draw out the things that were frustrating her. And deal with them. As normal, healthy couples do.

Chalk that up as a lesson learned, to be applied the next time around.

"Once upon a time, a pretty girl loved me and wrote something very nice to me. And now I've shared it with you."

Regretfully,
Mr.B

Patched Up.

Huzzah!

I've won two new auctions on ebay and claimed two new patches for myself. These are what they look like.


Customizable GhostBusters Name Patch.
The nice lady in California who sells these bad boys, will put your last name in them, ala, Ghostbusters. Same size. Same color. Same font. And then mail it to you.
I wanted a namebadge on the jacket that I'm adding these patches to, but couldn't find a patch that I particularly liked. In all my searchings online, I kept thinking, "I just want something that looks simply, like the Ghostbusters-style patch. Something that doesn't draw attention to itself."
Lo and Behold, this chick in Cali will customizably make EXACTLY what I was looking for.
Total cost, including shipping = $12



Buckaroo Banzai Winged B's Patch
I'm a sucker for the movie, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension". I can remember seeing that movie on repeat on the movie channels at my grandparents house. I thought all of the aliens dialogue was HILARIOUS. "John Bigga-bootay!" Etc.
I own it on DVD as an adult and whenever I watch it, I'm struck by how charming it is. The end sequence with the flying spaceships is retardedly brief. But the final "Heroes Strut" scene still inspires me and makes me hungry for the follow-up movie that never happened. (Wes Anderson sights the same scene as his ending for The Life Aquatic. Which is another reason why I love that movie, too.)
Of the patches that I found online for Buckaroo Banzai, this was the one that didn't look like it was designed by Konami for a 1984 Video Game Box Cover. This one has a classic look to it, that I like.
I am planning on placing this, either on the right breast area of the jacket or on the neck of the back of the coat. Whichever looks the most balanced.
Total cost, including shipping = $10



Hellboy's B.P.R.D. patch
I've actually owned this for two or three years now. But I've never taken the time to get it placed on a jacket. I love the dark design of this patch. Nice balance of red and black. This one is going on the right sleeve of the jacket and will likely be the only patch over there.
This was the patch that inspired me to remake my grey, electricians coat into something else. A jacket that has a sleeve in other worlds, where these fictional companies exist.
Total cost, including shipping = Can't Remember. I think around $8.

For some reason, I've lately been buying t-shirts and patches that come directly from the reality of movies and tv shows. I like the idea that products and brand names that are created only in fictional mediums are somehow birthed into existence in my world and I can own them.

For example:
Ed's shirt from Shaun of the Dead.
A Team Zissou Logo Shirt.
A Rushmore Academy Shirt.
Patches from various fictional Sci-Fi movies.

It's not enough that a patch says, "Star Wars: The Movie" or
I Grok Spock" on it. I don't have any interest in that. But a "Yoyodyne Institute" patch? Or a "Weyland-Yutani Corp" logo t-shirt? Give me that.

I guess I like the subtle nods to other realities that these products offer up. And how they silently ask the viewer to reference the fictional material to identify th reference. Cinema Hipsters might catch references and we are instantly connected. "Yes, I know that movie and yes, I like it too. So much so, that I'm wearing this obscure reference to it on my chest." All of that is spoken, without a word being exchanged.

I also like how the mere existence of these items teases at the fabric of reality. For example, "Air Kentucky" was an actual airline that lived for 3 or 4 brief years in my hometown of Louisville, KY. It was dead and gone, by 1979. In 2004, however, the brand of airline made a re-appearance in Wes Anderson's movie, "The Life Aquatic". Resurrected and alive and well, in the fictional world of that movie. I can go online, right now and buy a "Air Kentucky" t-shirt. And because of renewed interest in the company, I can buy EITHER the original logo of the actual company or the re-designed logo of the movie. A once dead company is teased back into existence, sort of, by the magic of the movies.

I love that idea.
I love that the world inside movies is just a step or two away from our own world. And by spending around $20, I gather to my bosom, these three items, with which I can subtly flaunt my particular brand of geekitude and simultaneously flirt with fictional worlds.

Boarding the USS Nostromo for a 0600 flight into Deep Space,
Mr.B

PS. Holy Crap! This website has an extensive listing of fictional companies from comics, movies and tv shows. I think I NEED a "Wayne Enterprises" shirt or a "Hidalgo Trading Co" hat.
Dang, the possibilities are limitless.

Romantic.

"When having a lady over for an evening of dining at your home, I recommend the addition of candles to the dining area. It adds a personalized glow that is sure to put every young lady in the mood for Love. How you light them, is up to you."



Cheers,
Mr.B

Loch Ness Monster

It's one thing to be sitting comfortably in your tiny boat with your friends, talking about the possibility that there might be a large, prehistoric creature swimming around in the depths below you.

It's another thing entirely, to have it swim up from the deep, dark recesses of the lake and actually nudge your boat a bit.

Not an attack.
Just a little nudge.
To let you know that it's real and it's bigger than you imagine it being and it is aware of you and what you're saying.

That Nudge crosses over the boundary from Idle, Private Consideration to Possible Encounter and frankly that scares people. Being confronted by something large that you can't control.

It's so very big. And your boat is so very small and so very easy to tip over.

Once it's nudged your boat, you can't pretend that it's Idle Speculation anymore. It's now become Actual Experience, as real as the nose on the end of your face. Now comes the time when you have to decide how you're going to deal with the creature from the deep.

Are you going to give over to it?
Are you going to try to fight it off?
Or are you going to try to continue living as you had before, pretending that it's not real and hoping that it doesn't come after you, in the dark of night?

It's down there, people.
It's bigger than you think.

Cheers,
Mr.B

(I am, of course, not speaking about the Loch Ness Monster. I am, of course, speaking metaphorically about Something Else, which I choose to obfuscate. At this time. I leave you to your own interpretations. No, I won't clarify it for you.)

Monday Morning Stream of Consciousness.

I really need to get my home computer up and working. My helplessness there is now frustrating me. I need to seek out a permanent solution to that problem. I can't believe that it's been 4 months since I was able to log into City of Heroes. I miss it. I miss playing my hero character. I miss flying through city canyons.
Add to that, I have this lovely little office set up and absolutely no use for it. Until a computer is installed in there, it's still an unused closet.

What an unusual weekend. Sometimes, you deviate from your own plan and surrender the course of how an evening will progress to someone else's whims and you end up at a different place and time than you thought you'd be in.
Sometimes it's good.
Sometimes it's bad.
Sometimes, it's scary.
Sometimes, it's pleasurable.
For me, that place was the Dunkin' Donuts at the corner of Montrose and Clark at 10Am on Sunday morning. Wearing my costume from the burlesque show the night before(albeit disassembled a bit to not LOOK like a costume), tired, hungry, hungover, still drunk, I wolfed down a breakfast sandwich, waited for the bus and drank fresh orange juice that was still frozen. So, I had an orange juice slushy, basically.
The pretty girls at the table next to me (What are THEY doing up, this early, at this place?) asked to use my cellphone and placed three local calls, from phone numbers hastily written on a sheet of notebook paper. No answers at two of the numbers and the person at the third number hung up on them as soon as they established who they were. I think they were lost. I think they were trying to get home. I think that they were tired. They were very young.
Later, when I finally got home and was kicking off my boots for a much-needed rest, the second phone number called back for the girls. I put the call through to voicemail, but I guess it was urgent, because he called right back. I answered and this guy (I never got his name) and I hashed out the situation. No, I didn't know these girls. No, I had no idea where they were going. We were all in a Dunkin' Donuts, way too early and they asked to use my phone. No, I didn't know where they were going. They didn't say. At the corner of Montrose and Clark. Goodbye.
And WHAM, I was asleep for the next 2 and a half hours.
I think that our afternoon visitor thought that I was avoiding her. I don't think that she could've known that I was actually asleep. That I'd gotten only 3 and a half hours of sleep the night before. And was completely exhausted. There's no way to communicate that, when you're dead asleep.

Rehearsal went well. We ran a new form, based upon our pre-conceptions of the new TV show "Heroes" and I can't BELIEVE how well it worked. 30 minutes into it, we hit a logical ending. EVERYONE had really funny bits in it. And it was AMAZING how coherent the piece was. Very little contradiction, if any. Afterwards, we all thought, "Holy Christ, that was our first run through. And we could've charged people money and presented that. Holy Christ. That was unusually good." I think it will become our Halloween show.

This is post #198 of this blog. Which I started, in early January.
Today is day #265 of this calendar year.
Of the 42nd week of the calendar year.
Since I'm usually not on this blog on the weekends, I typically post when I'm at work. Which is Mon. - Fri. of any given week.
There have been 210 weekdays this year.
I have very nearly posted a single entry in this blog, once a day, every weekday, for almost an entire year. (Somedays I miss an entry. Somedays, I post two or three. I think it all works out in the wash.)
In the end, I'm very nearly keeping a steady pace here. How interesting is that?
Only moderately, I think.

Ryan's right. His theory about women is spot on. And I'm suffering frustration and confusion these days, because I didn't understand or live by his particular theory, until now. When in doubt, ask Ryan. He's got this particular mystery figured out.

I love PostSecret. But sometimes, it is a one-two punch to the soul. Sometimes, it really, really brings me down.

Listen up, Comcast. I am READY to see these new graphically-enhanced episodes of Start Trek: TOS. So, start fucking showing them, already! Stupid unreliable television schedule!

Computers change, here at work, on Friday. I'm ready. This work computer is completely clean. I have a single CD disk that has all of my old personal data on it. Friday will be the end, though, of my existence on the Bee Board and of weekday additions to this blog. All future posts here will come in the evenings. So, look for that.

Because I don't WANT a MySpace page. That's why. I probably won't ever have one. There are SOME people that I actually want to hide from.

Fuck, I'm running out of steam. The two paragraphs that I just attempted to write and deleted, were stillborns. So, I'll end this now with a singular visual image that you can enjoy.

On Saturday afternoon, alone at home, I stuck a pumpkin on my head and wandered around the house a bit, practicing my creepy, scarecrow walk. The pumpkin was a perfect fit and will, I think, work out just fine. I just need to figure out how to illuminate it from within and I'm golden.

Cheers,
Mr.B

Baby Backblast.

I've finally caved in to my mom's requests and gotten around to converting old 8mm filmstrips over to movie format and posting them online. This is the first one in the series. It's only a few seconds long. I think I was about 4 or 5 months old when this was taken.

Enjoy.



Ain't I a little stinker?

Cheers,
Mr.B

Flickr Badge!

Hey!

Check it out!

<------------------------O

I've added a new FlickrBadge to my blog.

It's that little picture box on the right, cycling through pictures from my Flickr Account!


Who knows?
You might see me in there!
Or yourself!
Or people that you know!

I'll be working, in the next day or so to clean up the pics that are in there. Currently it loads ANY picture in my account. A couple of those pics could be pulled out. I will also work to get some nice descriptions on those pictures. So, if you see something that interests you, you can click on it and see what it is!

A nice upgrade that was SUPER easy to do!

Nailed it on the first try!

Cheers,
Mr.B

While I've Been Away...

Hmm, I seem to have abandoned this blog for a little while. I suppose that I've been distracted by life, for the time being. And my access to the Internet has been spotty (at best).

Here's a short list of things that I've been doing INSTEAD of updating my blog...

-Playing D&D again with my improviser buddies. Killed some devils. Got a new suit of armor. Bickered with our bard. Fought in a street brawl. Walked around, looking imposing in my new full plate armor.
With Schaefer moved to Athens, GA, our bi-weekly games have moved to being monthly games. Which is fine. I use the time down to look forward to the next game with great anticipation. And a monthly commitment is easy to make.

-Getting pictures taken with the cast of the BBR.
That ate up nearly all of last Saturday. Over 600 pics and 11 videos later, we now have TONS of stuff available for marketing pics. Look for updated pics to pop up on the website and on this blog. (All taken, of course, by the very talented and very hirable, Fuzzy Gerdes.)

-Working on a new Children's Show with Megan Pederson.
I don't want to say too much about it. In case it doesn't end up happening. If it DOES happen, though, and looks and sounds as good as we want it to, it'll be a HELLUVA show!

-Chatting up Pretty Girls.
Oh Lord, I have too many to name. But I love each and every one of them more than the next one. Who knows, I might end up actually dating one of them. Who knows...
I remain, unhappily, Make-Out-Session Free, though. Got to remedy THAT soon.

-Offending People with both word and text.
Something I said to someone once, a long time ago, got passed back to someone who should've have heard it and I had to do some damage control there. Not fun.
Something I wrote on this blog, came to the attention of the one person that I never thought would see it, but they did and for a brief time, things were wierd. Luckily, this person is about as positive and as graceful of soul as a person can be and forgave me for the things that I wrote here. That situation has improved considerably.
Some, you lose. Some, you win. Sometimes, you lose, even if you won. (Think about THAT one, Amateur Philospher!)

-Reading A LOT lately.
The entire "Promethea" series, all the way through. Both Shatner Memory books. Alan Moore's "Voice of the Fire" and his "League of Ex Gents" Vol. 2 and the Companion book by Jess Nevins.
It's rare that you don't see me with my face down in a book, these days.

-Maintaining the Apartment.
Worked on my bedroom some more last night. It's slowly morphing away from a total embarrassment to being a place where I might bring someone. The rest of the apartment requires a little attention.

-Treating Maggies Ears for Ear Mites.
I'm sick of her discomfort. I've really applied myself to this ongoing struggle. She's never had her ears cleaned as much as we've been cleaning them, this past week. Messy business, but long overdue.

-Treating myself.
Turns out the annoying dull ache and swelling that I've had in my right Big toe, off and on for almost two years now, was an Ingrown Toenail. (Thanks for helping me diagnose that, Wikipedia.) It's a fairly common infection of the soft meats of the toe, under and around the toenail. The treatment is easy, soak ones foot in hot, warm water and Epson Salts. There are few medical treatments as pleasant as soaking an aching toe in warm water.
The toe is nearly entirely healed now. By the end of this week, I'll be completely healed.
Next up on my quest for self improvement, surgical removal of "skin tags". I have 3 of them and I'm pretty self conscious about them. Time for them to go away.
After that? Weight loss and muscle development.

If I were to tell you the complete truth, I would tell you that I was intentionall avoiding this blog. I haven't felt like a very good writer, lately. And there are stories that have happened over the week that I felt I MUST get written down. Of course, I never did. I don't react well to pressure. Even pressure that I put on myself.
So, I've left this blog unattended.
Additionally, I forgot why I was keeping it. Was it to post amusing video clips? Or pictures of me? Or to stage elaborate, silly contests?
In the end, I've determined that it's for ALL of those things and a few more. It's also a place to werehouse my memories. Things that will fade in time, are recorded here. For later perusal.
Hence, with that new understanding, I am returned and posting again!

Some Things that I am Looking Forward To:
-The Laflamboy Halloween Bash, next weekend. I have a costume that I am DYING to get into.
-Jackass 2 & Flyboys.
-My first writing competition with Mr. Gilmore.
-Getting finances in order.
-More Justice League & Batman Beyond on DVD, next month.
-2 more FABLES books by the end of the year.
-Getting my office up and running at home. It's very cozy, just needs a working computer in it.
-Possibly working on a show with Don Hall and WNEP for New Years Eve. I hope that works out. I like those guys. And I've wanted to do this show for a while. Even the invitation to audition, was very kind of them. Hopefully, I get cast.
-More D&D adventures.

I'll add more things as I think of them.

Sorry that this post wasn't more artful. It's an exercise in getting back into the habit of posting regularly. While I still can. At the end of the month, all superfluous internet access is going to be taken away from all of the work computer. Productivity will go way up. Creativity will instantly be shut off. Dunno how that's going to shake out. We'll see.

Cheers,
Mr.B

Hard-laughing.

Roxanne, one of my Speed Lemons, took this picture of me at the SL sleepover. I don't remember her taking this picture. But, to confess, I was pretty, pretty drunk.

I was laughing like a madman, at SL member, Adam, who was desperately trying to explain a simple game to us. But we were all soooooooooo drunk and soooooooo distracted, that the poor guy had to keep repeating himself and answering the dumbest questions, over and over again. I'm sure that when this picture was taken, he had completely broken down and was starting to yell at us.

Apparently, I think that was very, very funny.

(Click on any image to see a larger version of it.)


Here's Adam, just after he'd finished yelling at us, poor boy.


And THIS is our erstwhile photographer, Roxy.


Who, later, decided to drop her cellphone into a bowl of Salsa...


Good Times,
Mr.B

An Early Morning Screeching...

Just got this notice from the nice folks of the Office of my Building. The emphasis is mine.

Dear Respective Tenant Contacts;

Beginning Thursday September 14th, 2006 the building will be conducting testing to the passenger car elevators. Testing will begin with the cars servicing floors 16 through 30 and move to the elevator cars servicing cars 1 through 15. The testing being performed is a requirement of the City of Chicago. Unfortunately, the testing will take several days to complete; the current scheduled date of completion is September 22nd.

Please be advised of the following conditions during this time period:

Elevator(s) will be taken out of service to perform testing. Due to this fact elevator wait time will be increased slightly through this time period.

The portion of testing between the hours of 5AM and 7AM will involve the testing of the safety mechanisms of the elevator(s). As a result, any occupants of the building during this time may experience:

o Sounds of banging, screeching or other noises coming from the elevator shaft or elevator lobbies.

o Temporary vibration in the floor, or ceiling.

o Increased elevator wait time.

During this time period if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact the office of the building at (312) XXX-XYXY. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding.

The Office Of The Building
123 North Office Building Drive

Screeching?
Like Human Screeching because the elevator is free-falling?
Or Runaway Elevator When Brakes are Suddenly Applied, Screeching to a halt, screeching?

Either way, the sounds of this will, I am sure, be terrifying.
Thank God I arrive for work between 8:30 - 9:ooam. In the non-screeching period of the day.

Taking the stairs for a while,
Mr.B

My 9/11 Memories.

On this day, 5 years ago, nineteen men hijacked 4 planes and crashed them into The Pentagon, both towers of the World Trade Center towers and a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people died in a few hours. All of the death were horrific. Some of them we watched on Live TV.

Today is a day for remembering that day. This is what I remember.

At the time, I lived up in Rogers Park with two buddies of mine, Pete and Corey. My girlfriend, Corina, had moved out a couple of months earlier. Pete and I had our own bedrooms. Corey had hung up sheets to steal the sunroom and make it his bedroom.

I remember that it was a hot day. Our apartment had no air conditioning. But we had plenty of windows and the sun was streaming in.

The phone rang. Early. I was sleeping hard, exhausted from a hard work night at the theater, the night before. I can't remember what show I was working on, those days. I think it was "Big, The Musical." Whatever it was, it kept me out pretty late.

It was my mom on the phone. "Wake up," she said," We're under attack. They are bombing American cities. Don't go downtown today."

"Are you serious?" I said.

"As serious as a heart attack," she said, "Turn on the TV's. You'll see."

I assured her that I was plenty far away from downtown, in case something happened. I promised to call her later, when things cooled down. I stumbled out of bed and threw on pants and a t-shirt and went into the living room. I turned on the TV to see one of the twin towers smoking. As the Onion later said, I had awoken to find myself "living in a Bruckheimer film."

Corey heard the TV on and woke up. He came into the room to watch it with me. I downloaded into him, as much information as I knew at the time. Crashed plane into the tower (there was no footage of it, yet) and planes crashed in Washington DC and other places. No idea how many planes. For the time being, Chicago appeared to be safe. But all planes, everywhere, were being grounded. Every channel had live footage of the World Trade Center aflame and belching thick, black smoke out of it's side.

I went and woke Pete up. This was something that he would want to know about. He sat on the couch in his underwear, petting his cat, Figment, and watching the same horror show that we watched. We were all there watching when the second plane hit the second tower. Someone said, "Oh My God. They got us again." But I can't remember who said it.

We watched the first tower fall. We were dumbstruck.

Later, we watched the second tower fall. The dust and debris cloud coming up from Manhattan was a terrible, living thing.

We didn't leave the couch for another 5 or 6 hours. We switched between news programs. I went online and searched for more information there. I shouted out to the boys when I learned something new. "A plane crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. I think the Air Force shot them down!"

I remember seeing a notice online that Howard Stern was broadcasting live and I listened to some of that, via headphones. It was there that I heard a guy call in from Pennsylvania to confirm that the Air Force had shot down a passenger jet and that the fighter planes were swarming the area. I believe, to this day, that our government shot down that plane. I don't hold it against them. It was a grim, final solution to a terrible situation. And probably saved hundreds of lives, even as it lost some.

The sun set and I can't remember if I ever ate on that day. I don't think so. I just sat there, watching, taking it all in. Horrified. And sad. It occurred to me that my world, as I knew it, was about to change in some very bad ways. We'd been attacked on American soil. Unprecedented. I never thought I'd see that, in my lifetime.

Eventually, Corey demanded that he and I were going out shopping for something. He needed to get out of the house and go somewhere, anywhere. He'd decided that we needed to go to Best Buy.

The streets were pretty empty as we drove there in his van. The whole way there, we discussed theories. I think that it was helpful for Corey to hear me talk about it and put things into perspective. At the time, we were certain that a nuclear war was the next most logical outcome. We were scared.

The Best Buy was as full as you would've expected it to be. People avoided the TV section, like it was gas-bombed. We'd all watched TOO MUCH TV that day and we wanted distraction. Corey bought a vacuum cleaner. I bought "The Goonies" on DVD. (I'd just gotten my first DVD player. I was pretty excited to get a new DVD. I remember thinking at the time, "Nothing heavy. This is a light, fun movie and it'll serve as a pleasant distraction from all of this.")

We went home and got some burgers from the mom and pop joint around the corner. We ate burgers and fries and watched "The Goonies" on DVD. It felt like a chore. All we REALLY wanted to do, was watch some more news. But we refused, putting some much-needed distance between us and the events unfolding in New York.

Corey and I walked, in the night time, down to the nearby docks of Lake Michigan. Out on the water, our legs dangling off the pier, he smoked. I sat there, looking up at the night sky. We talked about things and cried a bit. And we watched as the pairs of Air Force jets were the only planes in the sky. They were so high, that we couldn't hear their engines. Twin silent running lights in an otherwise empty sky. They patrolled the air above us, in endless patterns, protecting us, should the terrorists strike us again.

For the next few days, I remember noticing the oppresive silence of a grounded national air fleet. So many planes land at O'Hare and Midway, that normally the sky is full of an endless line of visibly landing planes. On that night, though, the sky was empty and silent. So was most of the city. We were all at home, watching tvs and trying to figure out what had happened and why.

"Why did I buy a vacuum cleaner?" Corey said, "We have hardwood floors."

I think that was the first time that I laughed, all day long.

Some time later, I slept.

It was a terrible day.

And it DID change our world and not for the better.

Without that day and those events, do you think that Bush would've been able to generate some much inertia to invade Iraq? A mistake that we're now 3 thousand lives into.
Civil liberties are threatened.
People are detained, God Knows Where for God Knows How Long.
And we've revealed ourselves to the world, to be PRECISELY the sort of people that the terrorists claimed that we were.
My bags are searched.
I leave my Gerber multitool home, when I travel.
My family can't come see me to the gate. (Something that I miss.)
And I am awakened to world where I now know and care deeply about who presides over this country and how they represent me to the rest of the world. Because I DON'T want another day, like that one, again. I don't think that killing everyone who opposes our national agenda is the best way to interract with the rest of the world. I think that understanding and actively involving the disenfranchised peoples of the world, is the only way to involve them enough to call extremist viewpoints into question. You're less likely to fire a Stinger missile at a valued friend.

More diplomacy. Less Destruction.

It's a bleaker world that we live in, now. Action films have to try harder to impress or amuse us. There's an edge to the world, now. This country has had her ass kicked by nineteen, highly-motivated guys with an agenda for destruction. If so few can cause so much harm, how do we defend ourselves against that?!?

Those were my memories of 9/11.

Mr.B



This video recently popped up on YouTube. Filmed in realtime, from a few blocks away from Ground Zero, this video takes you right into what that morning must've felt like. Be forewarned, it's very intense.

Weather Man.

I've always been very easily influenced by the weather.

On grey, rainy days, like today, I want to stay home from work and curl up in bed with my dog and sleep until the afternoon and do as little as possible.

On blue, sunny days, quite unlike today, I want to stay home from work and sleep late with the dog and then clean the apartment and put things in order.

In retrospect, perhaps this is less indicative of my feelings about the weather, than it is about my job.

Chin up,
Mr.B

Black Adder Theme.

Great cover of the Black Adder Theme from a Belgian Tv Show.




Enjoy.

Mr.B

Watch some TV with me.

Hey, ya bums!

Get some culture, why dontcha?

Moonlight Sonata


The Mario Medley


The Sims Building Theme


Video Game Themes on Accordian.


Nintendo Themes performed A Capella


Thank me later.
Mr.B

Robots Revenge.

(Can you tell that I'm farting around in YouTube this evening?)

"Lo, there SHALL come a time when the ROBOTS of the world will RISE UP and conquer us, their former masters. Crank, clamp and gears will crush sinew and bone. The streets will run RED and BLACK with the spilled blood and oil.

This is how they will conquer us.

At first, it will begin as an innocent DEMONSTRATION of their new found appreciation for the human activity, known as DANCE.


Charmed by their LOVELY DISPLAY, we will find ourselves dancing with the soulless demons!


Our WOMEN will not be able to resist their cold, UNDENIABLE commands.


Next, our MUSIC will fall under their sway and the SERVANTS become the MASTERS!


Some of the Robots will be in DISGUISE!


DISTRACTED by their pleasant demeanor, we will lower our guards and then the CARNAGE will begin. (The carnage is at the end of the video.)


To Make Matters Worse, You will meet your demise in a European field, RAPED by an AMOROUS DONKEY!


The CIRCLE closes.
ROBOTS victorious!

"Hear endeth the lesson..."

Mr.B

A Contest: Help me Design a T-Shirt!

Thanks to the amazing Zazzle website, I can now design my own t-shirts online and get them printed and shipped to me. I've always wanted a t-shirt with some cool old comics cover on it. Something science-fictiony and a little absurd. But I never could find what I was looking for, online. Today, that problem ended.

While culling through an online archive of old pulp sci-fi magazine covers, I found a bunch of designs that I really like. I love the corny sensationalism of all of these covers. Anything with Robots or Gorillas or Tough Heroes or Women in Distress is very, very cool to me.

I'm going to get one of them printed up on a t-shirt. But I can't decide which one! Say, let's have a contest here to help me pick the design for my first Zazzle t-shirt!

Take a look at the covers in this post and pick the one that's your favorite. In the comments section, below, say which cover you like and why! The one that gets the most votes will actually be made into a T-Shirt and worn by me!

Feel free to vote anonymously, if you want. (as long as you aren't being a jerkwad for no good reason.)
If you are reading this, you are invited to participate!
Comment as often as you want! Feel free to argue for your choices clear superiority!

Here are the covers!
(Click on them to see a giant sized version of them.)


#1 - SACRIFICE TO THE LUST QUEEN!


#2 - BLACK BAT'S CRUSADE


#3 - CAPTAIN FUTURE: WIZARD OF SCIENCE


#4 - THE LAST OF MRS. SATAN


#5 - RETURN OF THE WHISPERING GORILLA


#6 - POLAR PUNCH!


#7 - THE SHADOW MEN!

Pick your favorite and nominate it in the Comments section below!

I'll close the balloting on on Friday, Sept. 8th. A winner will be announced then!
I should be wearing the shirt, less than a month later!

Also, I've already decided to get THIS cover made into a shirt. It's my favorite comic cover of all time! How could I resist?!?

I can't wait to see what you guys pick! Vote early and often!

Cheers,
Mr.B

Quality Certified!

Good News, Readers!

According to a seal that I made for myself at THIS website, this blog is now "Quality Certified"!



Now, it's official!

Whew. THAT'S a relief!

Your Quality Control Expert,
Mr.B

Gettin' CRAZY.

Here's something I learned over the Labor Day weekend...

IF you're at a party, no matter what is happening or how crazy things are going, play "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and EVERYONE* will stop talking and sing along passionately.

As soon as the song is over, the conversation resumes.

And if the CD is on auto-repeat and the song comes up again, the EXACT same thing happens.

People are crazy about this song.

Cheers,
Mr.B



*Oh yes, I was definitely one of those people.

Blinded by the light.

I discovered on Saturday that I've officially lost my sunglasses.

I've had that same pair for almost 3 or 4 years, now. I can't remember where I bought them. I liked them. A lot. They fit my head. And were dark enough to allow me to check out all of the lovely ladies on the train, without creeping them out.

Alas, they're gone. And a full on toss of my apartment did nothing to locate them.

I'll have to pick up another pair. Whenever I get around to it. I hate replacing things that I genuinely liked. I feel like an old friend has gone away. Lord, but sometimes I get retarded attached to things.

Until then, if you see me making this face when we meet, it's because the sun is too bright for my delicate sensibilities and not because I'm wishing you would go away.

Sidewalk Dancer.

A lot happened over this Labor Day weekend. I spent a night with friends, in an apartment that wasn't my own. I saw a cubs game with other friends and then cooked out with them and laughed until I cried. (sober.) So many memories and I want to capture them all. But before I do, I want to capture this one particular moment from this past Monday. When things just fell into place. And I got to be a big guy, for a bit.

On Monday, I spent the first half of the actual Labor day, walking around with a pretty girl that I fancy. We ran an early morning errand together. We walked a bit and then had lunch together. I had a lovely salad with chicken bits in it. She ate ribs and a few french fries. (As she smartly put it, "It's an American holiday. What foodstuff is more American than steak or ribs?")

In the tiny little restaurant on Halstead street where we ate, there was only her and me, another couple and our waitress. It was pretty empty for a noontime meal. She finished her lunch early and then excused herself to step outside for a post-lunch smoke. She immediately set up camp outside the window I was facing and began to stare me down, while I ate. (Such a flirty girl.)

I turned to my right, to avoid her eye contact. She walked down a few steps and met my eyes again.

I turned to my left, to face the other way and she walked over there to stare me down again. (Such a clever girl.)

To the left, though, there was signage in the window that blocked her off, from the shoulders up. When she leaned over to look at me, I smiled and waved her to stand back up, giving me a perfect view of her chest and belly and tight, little bottom. She laughed a laugh that I couldn't hear and then as a joke, grabbed her boobs a bit. A playful tug. Which made me laugh, too.

And then she started to do a little dance.

Sort of a shimmy and a wiggle and a slide. Her head was still obscured, so she launched herself off of that cliff, taking it on faith that I was still onboard with her. And I was. I nibbled the fresh bread and sipped my tea and watched her make slow circles out there. Her back turned towards me and she shook her hips for me, a little bit. She danced like Mrs. Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. A lot of style, conveyed in a few, small movements. A pretty girl showing off a bit, for some lucky guy. In this case, me.

I was so much enjoying what I was seeing that I didn't hear the guy addressing me. The other lunchtime customer, there with his ladyfriend, had seen my friend and I guess they were discussing it with each other. I guess something in the frivolous nature of her playful display upset this guy and he needed to confront me about it. Maybe he expected me to be embarrased and to call this all to a halt.

"Excuse me, friend! Excuse me," he barked. I turned and looked over at him," What is your friend doing there?"

I looked back at her, lazily, and confirmed that she was still dancing and she was. I looked back at him and said, "Well, She's dancing. On the Sidewalk. Is that a problem for you?"

As if it was the most natural thing in the world.
As if he was an idiot for asking for what was plainly visible.

"No. No. I was just... ah... curious. Thank you." and he went back to his meal and I went back to watching my friend end her little dance and her cigarette. She put it out and came inside, smiling devilishly. I quietly applauded her and said, "Very nice."

I paid the tab and we left together. On my way out, I made eye contact with Mr. Curious and said, "You two have a nice lunch now, y'hear?" and then left. Off to some other adventure with this little gal.

It felt good to flex my muscles a little bit. To back up my friends play like that. To be unapologetic in our behaviors. To live a little bit, and to let the spectators work out the explanations for themselves later. That is a life lived well.

Cheers,
Mr.B

Happy Labor Day! (2006)

Hey everybody!

I just wanted to wish everybody a happy Labor Day weekend. I hope everyone wastes their Monday away. Days off from work weren't meant to be spent digging up the front yard or installing new electrical equipment or getting the car serviced! They were meant for sleeping late, movie watching, ordering out and masturbating. So, get out your sweatpants and get ready to start relaxin!

Me?

I'm performing a show tonight.
Doing NOTHING tomorrow.
Attending a sleepover with friends tomorrow night.
Catching a Cubs game on Sunday. (Thank you, Hendo!)
And doing NOTHING on Monday.

Good times!

If you get a chance, get out and enjoy the nice weather! I know, I will.


(That's me, greeting some of the ladies in the park, last Labor Day weekend. All charges have been dropped! Thank Goodness!)

Have a Happy 3 Day weekend!

Cheers all,
Mr.B

An Obstruction on the Stairway.

This is an accurate recounting of my actual thoughts, this morning, exiting the Washington/Wells train station...

"Aw man! Come ON! What's holding all of these people up? I've got to get to work!

A suitcase? A lady lugging down a giant suitcase? Lady, you took a suitcase down the stairwell? Don't you know that you're supposed to wait and let the commuters go first? Otherwise, YOU are blocking up the stairs for all of us and we're barely crawling down this stairway, behind you!

No! No! No!

Waitaminnit, that's TWO suitcases strapped together! Who do you think you're fooling? They're bigger than you! What do you need all of that shit for? Where are you vacationing, The Himalayas?!?

Aaargh! Goddammit!

And what's the deal with the giant coffee? If you KNEW that you were going to be carrying a ginormous suitcase down all these stairs, WHY would you further encumber yourself with a tall coffee? That hand is now useless to you, getting down these stairs! Think, lady, think!

...

...

Oh hey, you've got a cute little butt!

...

Nevermind all that stuff I said.
Thanks for wearing those slacks today.

...

Hot."

THE END.
Mr.B